This invention relates to a vehicle driving apparatus, and more particularly to an improved vehicle driving apparatus suitable for use in an automotive vehicle of front-engine front-drive type (which will be referred to hereinafter as an FF-type vehicle) or an automotive vehicle of rear-engine rear-drive type (which will be referred to hereinafter as an RR-type vehicle) to provide speed stages of four-forward and one-reverse speeds including an overdrive.
Automatic transmissions are commonly known in which a planetary gearing of Ravigneaux type is employed to provide speed stages of four-forward and one-reverse speeds including an overdrive. In the known automatic transmissions, a clutch unit connecting between an input shaft and a carrier is disposed within a torque convertor or a transmission casing so as to provide the overdrive speed stage. However, these known automatic transmissions have been defective in that the total length thereof becomes inevitably larger than that of automatic transmissions in which the planetary gearing of Ravigneaux type is similarly employed to provide speed stages of three-forward and one-reverse speeds, resulting in difficulty of attaining standardization of parts, especially, transmission casings of the latter and former automatic transmissions. Although the four-forward speed automatic transmission of the construction above described can be turned into a three-forward speed automatic transmission when the clutch unit providing the overdrive speed stage is removed, the total length thereof cannot be shortened because the transmission casing itself remains in the length designed primarily for the four-forward speed automatic transmission. It has therefore been difficult, not only from the aspect of cost but also from the aspect of space, to mount such a three-forward speed automatic transmission on an FF-type vehicle or an RR-type vehicle of small size which does not substantially require a four-forward speed transmission and is therefore inexpensive and in which the engine is frequently situated transversely.